Watercolor: Salt-Watercolor

Salt absorbs water.  Everyone who has taken a fifth grade science class knows this.  But most of us probably haven’t thought much about the water/salt absorption principle since graduating from fifth grade.  It’s just been consuming some much needed real-estate in our brains.  Well, here’s a practical application for one of those things that seemed to be taking up valuable space in your memory.

Salt in Action

Drawing: Gesture Drawing

I had a professor who told me something revolutionary.  He said that before he began working, whether it was drawing or painting, he warmed up first.  He would spend ten to twenty minutes just making lines and shapes on scrap paper before he began to work.  It’s something that you rarely hear about, but if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.  Athletes warm up before they play.  It only makes sense that an artist should get his or her muscles stretched and exercised before he or she begins to work.

Supplies: Matting

Presentation is a very important, but oft overlooked aspect of art.  It has even been said that good presentation can elevate the quality of the work itself.  But how you go about presenting your artwork will depend on a variety of factors.  The first among these is the media you’ve worked in, or rather, the media you’ve worked on.  If you’re painting on canvas, wood, glass or anything thicker than a couple of millimeters, you’ll need to make your way to your local frame shop.  But if you’ve worked on paper, you can simply mat your work.  Today we’ll look at how to do this.

Watercolor: Using Dr. Ph. Martin's Water Dyes

Dr. Martin’s water dyes offer very vibrant colors that are often difficult to create with regular watercolors.  However they’re not technically watercolors themselves.  Heck, they’re not even paints.  But they work very well when paired with traditional watercolor paints.  That is, if you know how to use them.

Composition: Tangents are Bad

Composition deals with the placement of elements in a painting or drawing.  And there are many methods designed to help you arrange your elements to create a desired effect or mood through composition.  However, regardless of which compositional style you choose, there are a few things that you’ll always need to be aware of regarding the placement of elements.  Today we’ll take a look at one of those things – tangents.

Roy Lichtenstein, Nurse, 1964